Erna Rosenstein, Aubrey Williams. The Earth Will Open its Mouth
This publication and the accompanying exhibition are a result of a dialog between the artistic practices of Aubrey Williams, a Guyanese painter based in the United Kingdom, and Erna Rosenstein, a Lviv-born Polish artist of Jewish descent, which was initiated by the Muzeum Sztuki. Their co-presence in the collection of the Muzeum Sztuki and the mutual affinities discovered in their works serve as points of departure for reflections on art in which processing difficult history and diasporic identities finds an expression in abstract and surrealist forms. Indeed, the dialog represents a discussion about the afterimages of the Holocaust and colonialism in the 1950s and 60s; and explores how they continue to haunt and impact our present.
Prof. Kornelia Kończal, Universität Bielefeld
By initiating a dialog between the paintings of Erna Rosenstein and Aubrey Williams, which have never been brought together outside of a museum storage room, the publication and the exhibition it accompanies reveal a surprising number of parallels in the ways these artists expressed the traumas of both the Holocaust and of the legacy of colonization. The essays in the catalog accessibly provide historical and cultural contexts for the works of Rosenstein and Williams; and will inspire readers to find similarities and analogies.
Prof. Laura Quercioli Mincer, Università di Genova
This publication is both a way of enriching the resources of the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, a leading European center for research on contemporary art; and at the same time it is an imitable example of how seemingly distant artistic traditions can engage in a fruitful dialog that may lead to the creation of new meanings.
You can purchase this publication by emailing us at: ksiegarnia@msl.org.pl
